The dingo is among Australia’s most recognised species internationally. However, debate continues on whether dingoes are considered pests or protected native species.
Dingoes have had major negative impacts on livestock producers, especially sheep farmers. To reduce this impact, landowners and government spend an estimated ~$30 million annually across Australia to control wild dog and dingo populations. Populations are often controlled using traps, baits and shooting. Australia also constructed the Dingo Fence, a wire fence made to protect from the loss of sheep for the sheep industry; it is the longest fence in the world (5,614 km).
Since its construction 80 years ago, the Dingo Fence has shaped the landscape of Australia. Perhaps unintentionally, the dingo fence has acted as a natural experiment that has shown the importance of apex predators like dingoes in ecosystems. On the side where dingoes remain present there is more vegetation and fewer invasive species like foxes than on the side where dingoes are absent, benefiting native biodiversity. The difference between sides of the fence is so distinct that you can even see it from space!
Historical and current control programs along with habitat loss have impacted dingo populations negatively, despite evidence that dingoes can be allies for livestock producers. Dingoes are currently listed as vulnerable to extinction under the IUNC’s Red List of Threatened Species.
In an exploratory analysis, here we’ll use data in the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) to investigate how historical and ongoing differences in attitudes towards dingo conservation affect where and how often dingo observations are recorded.
Summarise observations
Let’s start by seeing how many observations of dingoes are in the ALA and where they are.
